Cronk, Ball named 247 Sports Freshman All-Americans

A pair of Indiana freshmen have been recognized for their early contributions.

Left tackle Coy Cronk and hybrid safety Marcelino Ball have been named True Freshman All-Americans by 247 Sports after authoring strong introductory seasons for the Hoosiers.

Here’s 247 Sports on Cronk:

A 12-game starter at left tackle in the toughest division in college football, Cronk helped pave the way for the No. 3 offensive in the Big Ten. A multi-sport athlete in high school, Cronk was a three-star according to the 247Sports Composite rankings but was a four-star and the No. 31 offensive tackle in the country on 247Sports.

Here’s what the site said about Ball:

His 73 tackles, 4.5 tackles for loss, 2 interceptions and 7 pass breakups were among the most disruptive freshman stat lines in the country. Hailing from Georgia power Roswell High School, Ball was ranked as the No. 103 safety in the country according to 247Sports Composite.

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7 comments

This is a testament to Wilson’s program evaluating young talent and successfully recruiting it. The talent evaluating and recruiting aspects are the 2 most important actions I’m most in worried of becoming less effective with the departure of Wilson. He was a very good judge of talent, remember the recruiting story of Natee?

Let’s hope they can continue. We all know Lynch couldn’t handle the recruiting part of the game and Wilson was a major step up. It’s not like he was crushing the rest of the Big Ten, though. Should be an interesting off season.

That being said, of all positions, why couldn’t a supposed quarterback guru recruit quarterbacks of the same caliber as our offensive linemen? After a half dozen years our stable of quarterbacks has just left me scratching my head. They are all so different I can’t figure out where Wilson was going with all this.

Yes it was, but also to the ability of his Assistant Coaches to develop talent. No doubt Wilson improved recruiting along with many other aspects of the program. But I am confident Allen will also be a good recruiter. The key is that each of his Assistant Coaches must be an excellent recruiter, too. Ironically, Wilson did not have great success recruiting top Quarterbacks. Maybe that’s relative to the expectations created by having coached a Heisman winner and other good QBs at Oklahoma, but in reality, that aspect of his recruiting never lived up to his reputation.

My guess is that IU under Allen will do better within the state of Indiana and continue to do well in the southeast, in states like Georgia, Florida, etc. where there is a lot more talent passed over by SEC schools. If the OC turns out to be a quality recruiter, we could see the talent on that side of the ball remain consistently high. I remain optimistic about Allen’s leadership.

Congratulations to Cronk and Ball for their recognition of being the best freshmen in the country at their position. Hopefully they will continue to develop and become one of the best in the country.

The fear about recruiting coming up isn’t very realistic. Coach Allen and the assistants are the ones that determined talent at IU. However the staff ends up being, I hope the new OC and QB coach can see the talent and bring it into IU. I think coach Allen will be better at bringing in talent with his approach to coaching players. I am sure the problem at IU was Wilson’s reputation at being abusive to the QBs and seeing other QB recruits leave or turn down IU. The new QB coach, whoever it is, should be a coach that can bring in good QBs and coach them well.

The way the players love coach Allen I have no doubt he will improve the program. I am a bit worried about the players that are looking at going pro but that is the issue with having good players,

Honestly, I don’t see anyone leaving due to the coaching change. While half the guys were obviously on the offensive side of the ball, I’ll bet that Coach Allen was generally well liked by the guys on the team.

Until proven otherwise I’m going to assume this change was made for the betterment of the team and the players.

I agree that K.W. pushed qb’s and brought out the best in them and was good at it. As far as being to hard on them, what really good coach isn’t? It seemed like he should have been able to recruit that position and qb’s should have stayed in the program better. Suds was exception. If he would have stayed healthy that would have been great. I think some of the other qb’s just did not respect the program enough to wait for opportunities that they may had when earned and given. I am still interested in the kid from Georgia.